150. "It's Past Time to Protect Children Not Guns"

... The 5,740 children and teens killed by guns in 2008 and 2009:
Would fill more than 229 public school classrooms of 25 students each;
Was greater than the number of U.S. military personnel killed in action in Iraq and Afghanistan (5,013).

The number of preschoolers killed by guns in 2008 (88) and 2009 (85) was nearly double the number of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty in 2008 (41) and 2009 (48).

Black children and teens accounted for 45 percent of all child and teen gun deaths in 2008 and 2009 but were only 15 percent of the total child population.

The leading cause of death among black teens ages 15 to 19 in 2008 and 2009 was gun homicide. For white teens 15 to 19 it was motor vehicle accidents followed by gun homicide (2008) and gun suicide (2009).

Of the 116,385 children and teens killed by a gun since 1979 when gun data was first collected by age, 44,038 were black -- nearly 13 times more than the number of recorded lynchings of black people of all ages in the 86 years from 1882 to 1968.

But more white than black children and teens have died from gun violence which threatens all in America everywhere.

Analysis of the most recent data from 23 high-income countries reported that 87 percent of all firearm deaths of children under 15 were in the United States. The rate of U.S. gun homicides for teens and young adults 15 to 24 was 42.7 times higher than the overall gun homicide rate for that same age group in the other countries.